This invention relates generally to automated banking equipment and particularly to an automatic currency discriminator for currency counting machines and the like.
In the field of banking and particularly in the field of automated banking, many sophisticated machines have been developed in recent years which are useful in automating many of the heretofore manual operations performed in the banking industry. Of particular concern has been automated equipment for identifying the denomination of currency. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,679,314, different spectral distributions of a bill are sensed in order to identify its denomination. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,870,629, phase locked loops are utilized in detecting the frequency characteristics of each bill being checked. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,280,974, the changes in magnetic flux of a bill moving past a sensor is utilized in identifying the bill denomination. The output of a photodetector is processed by the apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,845,466, so as to form a probability density function which is compared with a prestored function. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,456, the reflectivity from one or more areas on the bill to be identified is measured and compared with the reflectivity of a bill as indicated by data in a storage device. Favorable comparison operates to identify the currency denomination.
Many of the foregoing techniques are either excessively complicated making high speed verification difficult or they lack the required accuracy for application in the banking industry. Furthermore, those patents describing approaches which are complicated also suffer from being rather costly to implement, regardless of its operation speed.
It is, therefore, a principle objective of the present invention to provide a currency discriminator particularly useful in high speed automated banking devices such as currency counters.
It is further objective of the present invention to provide a currency discriminator which is fast operating and highly accurate.